March 28, 2019 – July 19, 2020
Vital Force, is a new exhibition featuring the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley’s growing collection of twentieth and twenty-first century art. The MSV contemporary art collection is composed of works by artists who are from the Shenandoah Valley, working in the region, or depicting scenes and subjects of the Valley in their art. Representing 12 artists, Vital Force displays 11 paintings and four mixed-media works that range in date from the 1942 painting Down in Shenandoah by renowned artist Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses to three works completed as recently as 2018. Several paintings in Vital Force are on public display for the first time, including Sally Veach’s Harvest Ghost, a poignant interpretation of the Valley’s changing landscape, Ren Crawford’s vibrant abstract Wild Horse, and Michael T. Davis’s Modern Day Presidential, an oil painting inspired by the atmosphere surrounding the 2016 presidential election.
Down in Shenandoah, 1942, Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses
Fig 7. Harvest Ghost by Sally Veach (American, b. 1962), Woodstock, VA, 2018. Signed on back: “Sally Veach / ‘Harvest Ghost’ / 2018”. Oil on canvas. Collection of the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley, 2018.15.1. Photo by the artist.
Cocktail Hour, Star Gables Motor Court, 2016-2017, Barry Vance (American, b. 1946) Signed “VANCE”